To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to her Department's winter supplementary estimate for 2008-09, what the likely effect of the financial corrections imposed by the European Commission will be on the level of resources available for other programmes in her Department. (263823)

Funding for ERDF financial corrections was found by a mixture of slippage, unallocated budgets and windfall receipts on a number of programmes, without loss of planned outputs.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate she has made of the annual cost to (a) local authorities and (b) the Audit Commission of comprehensive area assessments. (264178)

The cost of the Audit Commission’s work on comprehensive area assessment will be covered, as CPA was, by income from fees paid by local authorities along with grant from my Department. My reply to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) on 3 March 2009, Official Report, columns 1547-48W, explained the annual costs associated with the comprehensive performance assessment including estimates for 2008-09. The Audit Commission published in December 2008, a work programme and scales of fees for 2009-10, and indicative fee proposals up to 2012 for new work on the CAA. This does not set out total cost figures for either themselves or for local authorities, but provides both the fixed and scale elements of the different fees for single tier, county and district councils of audit and inspection work.